Page 27 of Infinite
“And do you really think quitting your job is going to make it easier?”
“I can’t do this either, Clara. I can’t sit here and . . . make babies. Could you? Could you help another woman do something you wanted more than your own life and couldn’t? Just the thought of it makes me want to cry, and I’m done crying.”
She moves closer, her voice soft and comforting as she says, “You’re not close to being done crying, Ash. You haven’t begun to scratch the surface of your emotions, and you’re going to feel more and less and then more. You’re grieving two losses, and you spent the first week of that trying to grapple with Quinn’s disappearance. So, in the last ten days, there’s no way you’ve dealt with your grief, never mind had enough time to be in a headspace to make decisions like this.”
“You don’t have to understand or like it, but I’ll be handing in my letter of resignation by tomorrow.”
I stand and walk to the door, but then she calls out, “I won’t accept it.”
My head turns, and I shrug. “You don’t have to, but I won’t be back.”
And with that, I exit the room and pray I never have to walk through these doors again.
10
Quinn
Ashton is a walking zombie. That’s the only way I can describe it. She’s alive, talking and moving, but she’s emotionless. Her heart isn’t into anything she says or does.
“What did Clara say?” I ask her as we get into the cab.
“Nothing.”
“You were in there a long time.”
She nods, turning her head to look out the window. “It’s Friday, right?”
I don’t fucking know. I’m so exhausted and doing my best to wrap my head around everything that I couldn’t tell you what month it is. “I honestly couldn’t tell you, why?”
Her eyes meet mine, and she shrugs. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
I’m racking my brain to figure out where she might have been going with that. I don’t think there was anything planned, but I don’t pay attention to much of that stuff anyway. The way she said “anymore” leads me to believe it had something to do with the baby.
After a few seconds, it hits me. “Ashton,” I say her name softly.
“Yeah?”
“Fridays were when you counted down another week?”
“It’s why I said it doesn’t matter. I guess I could count the weeks since we lost her.”
My heart sinks when I look in her eyes. There’s so much pain and sadness. “No, we shouldn’t count that.”
She laughs without any feelings. “Right, that would be morbid and stupid. We shouldn’t. I was joking.”
I don’t think she was joking at all. I believe she’s going to count it in her heart and that each week will drive her further into her grief.
“Okay.”
Right now, the ground is covered in razor-sharp eggshells and no matter which way I walk, my feet will bleed. I have a feeling that whatever happened in that room after I left is weighing on her. I can’t name why, but she’s . . . even more vacant than she was before.
Like something inside her has snapped.
She’s not crying or really doing much of anything.
I need my girl to fight. I’m not sure how to elicit that, but I have to try.
We get to the apartment, set our stuff down, and she settles on the couch. I sit beside her, my hand resting on her leg.
